Stop searching for phrases and chasing after words.
Take the backward step and turn the light inward.
Your body-mind of itself will drop
off and your original face will appear.
If you want to attain just this,
immediately practice just this.
- Dogen (1200-1253)

Monk In The World

To be a monk is to have time to practice for your transformation and healing. And after that to help with the transformation and healing of other people.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Working through some training with Dosho Port online. Part of that training is coming up with a Gatha about arousing the way seeking mind.

Here’s what I came up with:

Arousing the Way Seeking Mind

Vowing with all beings

To possess Don’t Know Mind

That I might see.

So this past weekend I was having a conversation with my daughter-in-law about a difficult situation we had both been aware of regarding some friends of mine. During that conversation she was very open about the conundrum of why her life at present had been going so well when somebody else’s life became so very difficult.

She acknowledged her being grateful for her life at present. And we both acknowledged having this other life to compare it with certainly helped raise our consciousness about how different our lives could be at any given moment.

So here was my Daughter-in-law, looking into the Great Matter.

And then I became a stumbling block for her, even if she did not recognize that.

I quickly tried to provide some answers for her in regards to certain ways she was struggling with what we both were aware of regarding these other lives.

True compassion would have let her struggle with that without a lot of input from me.

I took something away from her in that.

My “don’t know mind” was not to be found.

I could have been of much greater help to her had I simply let this situation be her koan.

I could have simply said, “So what do you think this means for you?”

Bless my ego!

I report all this to raise our awareness of how important our practice is to our real life situations, which in fact is our practice.